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107 Chapter 7 The Return to Breastfeeding, 1960–80 T hroughout the early 1960s, breastfeeding initiation and duration rates remained relatively low, with less than one-quarter of mothers initiating breastfeeding. However, while breastfeeding continued to be abandoned by some groups of women, other groups were increasingly interested in choosing to breastfeed. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, breastfeeding rates began to increase in all regions of Canada. As with the shift away from breastfeeding two generations earlier, so with the shift back: women from higher socio-economic backgrounds led the trend. The return to breastfeeding occurred in the midst of a range of social, cultural,andpoliticalmovements.Thenaturalchildbirthmovementemerged strongly in the late 1960s in conjunction with the women’s movement. Women began to re-evaluate their roles in society and in the workplace as well as their relationships to their children and partners. Attitudes towards childbirth and reproductive practices were challenged and altered. The formation of La Leche League, a lay organization supporting breastfeeding, was key to supporting and strengthening the return to breastfeeding in Canada. As well, international efforts to counter the marketing practices of infant formula companies in the developing world found tremendous support among Canadian women in the late 1960s and early 1970s, creating awareness about the potential dangers of infant formula. Finally, by the late 1970s, public health and the scientific community “rediscovered” the value of breastfeeding, and this lent the practice increasing medical authority. “Fashions” in Infant Feeding: Breastfeeding in the 1960s A 1964 Globe and Mail article commented, “Breastfeeding seems to go in and out of fashion in Canada, depending on the current mythologies, the status of women, and even the geographic area” (Globe and Mail 1964, W3). The articlereportedthatbreastfeedingratesvariedconsiderablyfromareatoarea and from one social group to another. In some places, 50 percent of women 108 Chapter 7 were breastfeeding, while in others, only 10 percent were breastfeeding. While overall breastfeeding rates continued to decline in the early 1960s, new “fashions,” or patterns, pertaining to infant feeding were beginning to emerge. Two retrospective surveys on breastfeeding practices in the 1960s and 1970s provide the first comprehensive overview of breastfeeding in Canada, and they show how breastfeeding varied according to social class, ethnicity, and province. New fashions in infant feeding both encouraged and discouraged breastfeeding . Interest in breastfeeding underwent a revival in Newfoundland in the early 1960s following an outbreak of gastroenteritis that took the lives of seventy-two babies. In the mid-1960s, Toronto public health nurses were reporting that many upper-middle-class mothers were initiating breastfeeding (Globe and Mail 1964). Many young mothers, especially university graduates, were interested in child development, particularly the concept of maternal-infant bonding (Grant 1968). Beginning with the work of John Bowlby in the 1950s and 1960s, new research was exploring the concept of attachment and the role of breastfeeding in developing a strong and nurturing bond between mother and child. Potter, Sheeshka, and Valaitis (2000) reported that maternal-infant bonding themes became significant in advertisements for infant feeding products in Chatelaine between 1955 and 1964, which is perhaps one indication of the popularity of this scientific research in public consciousness. In some groups of women, breastfeeding was still considered the norm. One public health nurse commented on how most mothers in Ottawa who had recently immigrated from Europe breastfed their first infant. However, by their third or fourth child, they often no longer chose to breastfeed as they found it was something they should only do in private. Other women who were interested in or attempted breastfeeding were discouraged by a number of factors. Some mothers complained of meeting overt scorn or disapproval from neighbours and even of having to deal with “the fear of the husband that it will spoil the wife’s figure.” One prominent female physician railed against the new fad of breastfeeding and called it “some sort of mystical status symbol.” In Ottawa, many female civil servants viewed women who chose to breastfeed as “letting down the side” (Globe and Mail 1964, W4). In contrast, many women believed that only poor women breastfed, and they saw bottle-feeding as the “normal” way to feed a baby. In the 1960s, while many affluent women were returning to breastfeeding, poorer women were just beginning to abandon the practice. One article commented on how upper-middle-class mothers who chose not to breastfeed were causing harm not to their infants but, rather, to the infants of poorer mothers who chose to follow their example (Associated...

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